[Music] Switzerland and the UAE have uh amazingly close relations and uh the Swiss Community here is quite big and uh one of the most famous Swiss Nationals who is on the board of the Swiss Business Council and is a chairman of the Swiss academy uh in the Urs uh Stirnimann, good morning and thank you for being here with us well it's a great pleasure am to be here and to participate and all your adventures you have and plans that's really exciting for me to be part of it thank you thank you for coming here today and Urs by the way was uh the uh chairman of Swiss Group which is Law Firm that existed in the UAE and still exists in UAE for quite a while and it's remarkable to mention that he was my boss for at least six years the beginning of my career in the UAE so uh happy to see you and happy to stay friends after so much time yeah it's very exciting to see that we still have a cooperation because I remember were quite a few years with us and I think I remember remember you above all that every month you passed by and said uh uh could I have a little bit of salary increase but also you had a lot of ideas you came all the time and then one day you saw well the possibilities with my company was a bit limited and you say hey I start myself and look what you did yeah big group you have you did so many new projects and I'm very very happy and proud proud that you started a little bit with me as well yeah thank you very much I I I I sincerely consider you a pivotal step in my career I mean you helped me a lot and you Mentor me a lot and I'm very grateful for you and I'm here today to ask you so many questions but I will always start with um what coffee do you drink every day in the morning well in the morning in uh at home at in the morning I don't really drink coffee but I drink milk okay milk and um that's very good for your bones as well and I just realized that because I was in katar in a hotel and I slep I fell in the bathroom full of my hips all fine nothing broken and I think that's my vitamin D from the Sun I get every weekend and the milk I drink every day is this kind of a Swiss tradition or it's uh your no it's not a swis but milk of course is very closely linked to Switzerland because we have our cows and it's certain importance yeah good how many years did you live in the UA in total and what is your professional Journey here well exactly 20 years ago I came here wow and uh there was in April and I started then with the low firm where you were part of it and it developed very nicely and so I saw above all how this country under their leadership how they developed know and that's I lived in other Arabic countries I lived in your country in Egypt in Lebanon in Palestine in Bahrain and this definitely has a leadership which has ideas Visions where we say oh what the heck they really plan and then they do it now this is impressive and I think that's also encouraging our company your company my companies to be part of it and to have ideas and to see that it's possible to do it no I think that is a great great thing a remarkable thing for sure can you tell me a little bit about your professional career I mean I know you lived in Caribbean islands you lived in Latin America you lived in the Middle East for a while you come from Switzerland just run us through a lot of people would be interested to understand how um how how your your career in general developed until you run the law firm here until you run as well this uh Swiss Academy and would like to know more about you well the whole thing started that when I was a young guy I was very much interested in diving scuba diving and I read all these books when I was 14 years old then I with 18 I even wrote wrote a book about scuba diving which was published and sold in German quite quite well and then with 20 I was a diving instructor in Kenya and the Sea so with 20 I left Switzerland and then afterwards I was um starting studying and then became a lawyer and worked very short time in a law firm I didn't like to do these divorces and I joined the international Committee of the Red Cross this is the Red Cross mother organization which only Works in war zones no so in Civil Wars I was in allocated in the Civil War of Lebanon uh 84 to 85 visiting prisoners of War which were prisoners of War for Israel which occupied it at that time southern part of Lebanon afterwards I went to Latin America could improve my Spanish got to low my wife there and I was also there uh in with the international Committee of the Red Cross then we thought well shall be with that organization which of course perhaps the next place would have been Afghanistan then we said okay let's change profession and I became a banker so I quickly did learn a banker with credit s that became quite well established in Bahrain looking after Saudi Arabia Qatar then afterwards I was in looking after Latin America from Egypt then some one day somebody came to me from a smaller bank and said hey would you like to establish a bank in the Caribbean and I said oh of course no problem I had of course no idea how to do it but it worked very well became very successful in the British Virgin Islands where I stayed for 5 years and established besides the bank which we had I established hundreds of thousands of companies BVI companies and then afterwards I became the head of that bank in Switzerland was the worst job I ever had very good salery but the people the staff they were not really new ideas don't know never did it like that no we don't do it so I left him after 2 years and joined made a sabatical with the Swiss government with fore minister in Palestine okay in Al Khal Al Khal perhaps people don't know in Al Khal that's heon where Abraham 3,000 years ago was buried with his family so the Abraham Accords and so on so that started from there so I was two years there over looking the situation in alal musk and then in 2004 I came here was running then that low firm which established quite well and I was liked it very much here how it develops all these new ideas and so that was a good thing yeah wow what a journey yeah it's quite interesting and many people say wow how did you do that well first of all I didn't have any plans for that but if somebody came and said hey are you interested in doing this and that I said oh sounds great oh wow for example British Virgin and Caribbean many people say oh I would like to do that oh I would like to do that and then I was the chair the boss of a bank there and I needed people from Switzerland they said oh I'm so jealous of you you're there and then I said okay now you can start working and then he said you know I thought about it but I can't really come you know because Sunday we always have lunch with the grandmother or my my son has so good friends he's in the football team you know there were always reasons not to come and for me I had a very flexible family with my wife Sandra whom you know and my s rol and they very at least they they accepted and they had also I think an interesting life and travel the chance to go to all these places yeah yeah but I I noticed through your journey you didn't stay 20 years in one country I mean here in you stay 20 years exactly yeah so it's only in Switzerland where I stayed perhaps in total about 25 years and 20 years here that is very exceptional yeah that's yeah for sure but it also reflects a little bit in all the other play I was in employe and I was employed then of course it's not your company but here it was my companies I had so yes and of course you don't feel okay I did that now for 3 years and I get rid of it you continue for longer very nice can you tell us what through your journey you met a lot of uh clients from abroad from all over the world not only from Switzerland but clients from from India from the Middle East from uh other countries advising them about the UAE what was the major Focus for you and how to help your clients in general throughout the law firm I remember my days and we were helping a lot uh clients on establishing presence here and what what legal issues making them introductions on how the legal system works in the UAE what was the most interesting service or most interesting aspect of running a law firm here well to be it sounds so great Law Firm but the you remember when you came to our Law Firm did you see many books there not really no there was one book there which was the labor court and that we needed but here it's not so much that you go and check according to article 24 paragraph 2 this and this exactly that way it works now we had to set up companies the rules here are quite flexible change every day so when we had something new to do I asked you I but hey call them is it still this way to do and then you found out no it's not really but it goes a little bit different so we were always well adapted to it and that was what our clients liked and I had clients mostly from Europe uh which was a little bit easier to handle because they didn't have too many contacts here so when I told them something they believed it they didn't have too many other opinions to it and uh as you know they stayed with me all the time yeah a few went with you okay but most of them stayed with me and they were happy and they were happy to pay quite a substantial amount compared with all the other people companies which do here a corporate service provider and what was also the cas is when we said something we had to do it yeah I told you Ahmed hey if you tell them you will do this contract and you will receive it today well you do it either till 5:00 or till 12:00 in the evening but you promis them and that makes you also gives you a better feeling what can I really tell them just saying no problem no problem to b b you will get it and then it doesn't work the the clients lose their confidence in you so with with the new laws and the new regulations the U is adopting uh every year and the changes do you did you see a lot of opportunities and challenges for your clients for example does the UAE become more interesting and more attractive for uh for for for entrepreneurs to come and live here or to relocate into this country what what do you feel about this yeah definitely it's still a very attractive place it's the attractiveness has changed in the last century in the British virion or anywhere in the world everything was easy compliance was really a foreign word money laundering anti-money La what the heck was that I mean that changed all and that made it different what we also experience now which is a huge chance for the UAE is the economic substance people don't really know economic substance started in Europe no in Europe when they said hey we are not happy that Amazon Google and those big huge American companies they made billions of profit but they didn't pay any tax in uh in Europe so they said this is not possible these are selling their products but they are not here they don't have any offices they don't have employees they don't have their management making decisions there so they started requesting that to have economic substance me having been 5 years in the British Virgin Islands where they had about a million companies which of course didn't have from that point of view no substance at all they didn't even have a PO Box the registered agent had the PO box for all the thousands of companies he had yeah so when suddenly the briti uh the UAE no sorry the European Union started to say companies need to have economic substance all these offshore places which are really offshore out away from everything where in the British vir you have a population of about 30,000 people with 500,000 or a million companies so of course it's very difficult to have economic substance and therefore what we see now is a lot of companies migrating from those places to the UAE yes because here you can can easily have offices as big as you want you can have employees from all over the world it is not like for example in Switzerland or any other place where they say oh no foreigners I mean we of course like the foreign money to come here but of course not all the foreigners need to come here they don't want that here they say everybody is welcome yes population is only about 10% of local population 8 10% 90% of foreigners like you and me yes and we are happy here and it works quite well and here you can have these offices and you can have employees and also the management is happily coming here so imagine you have investment funds in Cayman Island you have about 3,000 investment funds in the British World about 2,500 investment funds uh with perhaps 100 million 500 million two3 billion dollars in it the management the decision makers of that company which is in BBI or Cayman are in London or in Singapore or in New York yeah and if they are now told hey you have to move to the BBI the wife will say oh great I am going there for two weeks but of course not the whole year and my children they should go to school somewhere I mean that's a little bit limited there but if they have now to move to the UA that of course is a complete different uh game because here the salaries of that person is not taxed weing corporate tax but the salary is not taxed so usually they get perhaps $250 or $500,000 a year so if they move here okay 500,000 Bo no that's not bad plus the wife in all these places I'm sorry that I make no distinction wife and man but very often it's still that the man perhaps in 60% is the working part ladies more but this is increasing as you know in my company we had more ladies than man working and so here everybody can find a job of course perhaps not with to Gallery you want and not exactly in the field you want but everybody can find something for example the the real estate business everybody can sell real estate you can become millionaire with it or perhaps you can't even buy a coffee with it no it depends on you yourself whether you're able or not but it makes you already a little bit of better feeling and you have more than 200 private schools here for all Fields whether they are from the Philippines from Russia from New York from uh Switzerland we have all these different languages you have so from that point of view huge huge advantage of the UA and this is a hub this is a hub the company most of our clients which came here they didn't come here because of the UAE they came here because ah from here I can go to easily to India to the soet union ex countries and Africa and so on so the great great advantage to be here as a profession as a a foreign professional living and working in the UAE for many years you how did you make your clients how did you meet new clients for example you said that most of your clients are coming from Europe which I I assume because you're European but did you meet all the Europeans that became your clients in Europe or you met them here well most of them I met in Europe because I was a member of for ex such organization like Ste Society of trust and estate practitioners definitely to recommend they have about 25,000 lawyers accountants in the field of setting up comp companies in all different countries so that is definitely one way to go in then I'm also member of the Rotary Club and of other clubs that helps and networking is something perhaps you remember Ahmed when we did I told you hey we have an invitation to go somewhere then I told you Ahmed it's forbidden for you to talk with me on that event I want that you go in that field area I go in the other area and my definition for networking is above all when you have 100 people in a room I'm sure there one two three people in there which are of high interest to you perhaps it's your future wife Perhaps it is somebody who went to school with your father perhaps it's somebody who needs a company perhaps somebody who wants to buy your car but there are people but how do you meet those people that means you have to speak with all the 100 people yes so if you get stuck in a corner with the same person the whole evening perhaps you know then the name of the grandmother from that person but the other people you don't know that is the thing you need to go out and I would like to recommend that to everybody in a company don't go to an event and speak with your colleague speak with all the people you don't know that is the most important thing and try to find out a little bit hey hey what are you doing and uh I think that is that is the way and have also an elevator speech ready that you click can inform within 30 seconds what you're doing and don't say you're a consultant but that means everything and nothing you're Consulting in in selling uh baby food or you're Consulting in opening bank account or what I mean there's such a field yeah you have to be very specific specific and clearly tell them not if you just go I'm a consultant perhaps the other person is not really used to say hey what consultant in what no you have to be open and tell what one of the mistakes that I find here especially with networking events is that some professionals use very hard words the words that you don't understand like very complex technical words that I sometimes ask him two three times can you please tell me what do you do and then I realize in the end is is I don't know selling filtered water or something but it's just they have to H make it simple because everybody here is coming from a different nationality from a different background the English language levels are different you don't really have to go up high into the terminologies of your industry that no one else understands I fully agree with that because that's people like so often to use abbreviations you have no idea what the abbreviation is and then you go into Google and you say what does that abbreviation mean ESR and you find five different meanings of it yes no so I for example I always say you know I was working the DC in the Dubai Financial Center I quickly say because there are people who don't know what it means it doesn't mean because I know I know what jlt means and everybody knows what JT is of course not you know so that you Griff it up and J Lake Towers that area yeah that is very very important yeah tell us a little bit more about the Swiss Academy because you're the chairman of the Swiss Academy I know very well for since 2004 even you started it I myself was one of the very early students of uh Swiss Academy I remember I started uh I I I got a course about International humanitarian law that was 20 2008 and in 2009 I I did a course about offshore jurisdictions worldwide and so on can you tell us more about this shift from legal into education and why were you always interested in that well as I mentioned before I was already a div instructor so I like teaching I like doing that so when I came in 2004 I set up I was running this law firm and at the same time I set up the Swiss Academy giving training in financial matters because I was a banker then in legal matters because I was a lawyer and then in uh International humanitarian law Geneva Convention the laws applicable in time of armed conflicts cuz I was working for the recross in in different countries where there was war or Civil War going so this starting and now we add crypto blockchain and compliance things we are doing so that is very important and you have this very big group the biggest group of lawyers with the Emirates legal Network I think about near 600 lawyers are in there it's tremendous amount of of people and companies in there in that field and all these messages going back and forth there are many who participated in this course which you also took the offshore course where people learn about setting up companies not just in the UAE but how did it start how did it start 100 years ago and lonstein in the Caribbean in Panama how then it came over so if you have this understanding then you were in a better shape to explain and to recommend something to uh to a potential client know this is very important and now we do something very important because the UA is expanding no we feel that every day on Shake side road we feel it because it takes longer to go from one place to the other more people are coming and people are needed here there are also many lawyers coming from India from Pakistan from your country from Lebanon Syria they come here they are good lawyers but of course it helps if you have a little bit an understanding of the laws applicable in that law in that country move to and therefore we start now with your assistant with your help if your knowledge to teach for lawyers the UAE laws so that when they apply for a job here that they can say okay I have the legal base of it I know which kind of laws are applicable I know how to find them and this I think is very important that people can show that they have something and uh what is also reflected by my background I had so many jobs okay because I like to do different things but this is now coming up for everybody crypto blockchain artificial intelligent what the heck was that in the last century nobody knews about it and now it is your step ahead if you have at least a little bit of knowledge of it know and where do you get such a knowledge we from the Swiss Academy we try to teach in these fields for young people to learn about it so that they can sell themselves better that they are better in advising their clients I mean this is just necessary and especially artificial intelligence yeah I mean it sounds so weird artificial intelligence but then when you see it what is possible to and especially in the legal field we say of course not this is very important that I write it myself but your law when I was a lawyer I had to go through all these books and find out information I was spending hours and hours so that afterwards we could write perhaps 10 lines a little bit based and this you now you get these within a second you get information of course you need to check it of course you need to do that but you know uh the translation programs they already existed in the last century I was using them they were completely useless I said what a useless thing no and today I mean they have if you see a film these are translated at the same second into another language and there you are and say wow it is it is remarkable well but the course that you mentioned about the the the the legal services in the UAE and how to become a lawyer here and how to work here I found it a remarkable opportunity for people who are practicing law abroad and they are interested into coming to the UA already here the B legal Affairs department and other entities in in other Emirates are uh making courses but these courses are for the continuous learning program for the professionals who are already registered here but there's nothing that is is not possible for those who are outside the UAE and they wish to come which is a huge number because I go around the world when I do the speeches in in Europe or in the Middle East in Egypt or Lebanon and so on and I meet a lot of young lawyers who are very keen to come and work here and I think filling the gap of legal or specialized legal professionals courses for lawyers or are abroad or are interested in to come in to work here in UAE is is quite a remarkable service and thank you very much for um making the platform for that possible with through the Swiss Academy I find it a a brilliant thing thank you yeah that is a good thing and that helps everybody and that I think is the thing that you I mean you left me of course my first few days I was not so completely happy but with the time and we realized you realize I realized the advantages no and and the things we do now together this is everybody needs to think hey there are competitors but you can do things together with competitors and you help you for each other I think that's a good idea for everybody absolutely I mean a lot of people would consider 600 lawyers in in one um digital platform talking and brainstorming and talking together would be uh not so uh helpful or not so uh good because there a lot of competition between them because they want to take business out of each other but it's not real the reality is the synergies and the cooperation and the referring of business and uh it's remarkable I I got so much business out of competitors out of lawyers who I know they're not handling uh my field I don't do IP I don't do uh litigation I don't I don't do company formation and we exchange business together and we benefit from the experience uh that we have even if we do exactly the same business but you're coming from Switzerland I'm coming from Egypt I have the knowledge about and background about how Egypt works and with cross uh with International transactions and so on we we benefit a lot from exchanging this this service of being part of a community is is really remarkable in general I fully agree I so you've been here 20 years when you first came there was no corporate tax there was no value added tax and I think a lot of services or government services not exist I think when you came here there was no Emirates ID even NOP nothing so what how how do you see these changes are they developing the UAE or is becoming it's it's making it a better place to live or it's making it harder because of the taxation how does how do you see this well the world is a global place and globalization everybody is so important so that of course means if you don't just have borders and nobody can come in that we go down with the borders worldwide and of course you have the international influence and pressure it's not possible anymore to say okay for example Switzerland had Bank secrecy no where you then thought okay all the bad people have their bank accounts and nobody knows about it which of course is not exactly the the truth yes but now everything becomes transparent and people say Okay I want to move now the the money away but where to you cannot go to North Korea where I was as well there are no banks there where you can make international transfers and so that is just not possible everything becomes transparent and there are taxes and I think it it was foreseeable that on one day tax is coming and here there's also huge opportunities when the value added tax was introduced here at the moment at the beginning of course nobody had an idea about it and I told my staff members look you know as much as ER Yang price waterhous Cooper and all these big big firms you know as much as they do because we know nothing what is going on if you start learning about it everything and try to read and listen around left and right and what happened exactly was in your company you your knowledge in this field is is just as good as those who charge three times more per hour than what you do and this is the same thing now with the corporate text not everything is clear but it is coming what we also can say in Switzerland that is might perhaps be of interest in Switzerland we have a 100 Year tradition in assisting foreigners to optimize their tax situation in the past it was well you just try to avoid that anybody knows about that money you don't pay any tax but with the time it also came okay for these things you have to go perhaps to this country is a bit lower and so on and you find new ways of cooperating and you also have now here the the problem that taxes or the issue that taxes are here and that means if you do run your company that means before I for example I didn't have a salary I just took out everything as a dividend at the end of the year but now we think oh I better pay myself myself a salary perhaps I even increase the salary of my staff members so that the the expenses are higher so that the profit which is then taxable is lower so all these things make us all think about it and give us new opportunities and we where we can compare with other countries and where of course Emirates legal network will be instrumental in learning and to take participating courses and so and now with Swiss Academy their new partners in Swiss Academy they will invest quite a lot in it so it will become bigger so we will have huge possibilities huge opportunities that we can offer more in the legal field in the accountancy field in the banking field in many other fields as well that's very interesting thank you very much for coming it's very interesting we always learn from you as usual and uh I'm happy to to have you here it's always a pleasure Ahmed definitely I enjoyed being here as well thank you this is your dose for Monday legal see you next week